Dance With the Devil
by KatxValentine
Summary: -Second in the Dark Side of the Moon series- Trip, stumble, fall and bumble your way through, romance with the devil is romance, regardless. Harvey's learning that the hard way.
1. The Basics

I _did_ say a likely collection of one-shots would come after _Dark Side of the Moon,_ and really, this is the first of what will likely be many separate ideas. Just a cute musing ala Harvey on Cleave and how much damn smarter he is than her. Thanks to all who read _Dark Side of the Moon_, I owe you guys, I really do.

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He keeps clicking his tongue.

On and off, sporadically changing to the rhythms of separate songs, clicking his tongue and breathing down my neck. Then he'll lick his lips, he'll swallow, and he'll make this terrible purr of a sound to end it off.

"Can you…stop that?"

His eyebrow lifts and, through his cheeky grin, he mutters, "Stop _what?"_

"Your…extremely distracting sounds of fucking stupidity."

His big, watery eyes glance over at me and his eyebrow perks. The corner of his lips follow suit, and I roll my eyes at what's coming. It's like I've turned the ignition to a car that was idling, and now it's all too eager to kick into drive. I try to avoid this night and day.

"I'm trying to _read_, Cleave."

"Whatcha readin', girly girl?" I flinch when he drops himself onto the cushion beside me, and I seriously wish he'd remember what the words 'personal space' mean. Okay, so I'm pal-ing around with a violent psychopath who likes to eat Cocoa Puffs out of the box.

I scowl at him, crawl a little further into the corner of the couch and try to curl up into myself before I mutter, "Tale of Two Cities."

Without warning he rips the book from my hands and I watch him throw it carelessly across the room with a half-hearted cackle and another click of the tongue. His head shakes and he springs off the couch by way of the palm of his hand, still laughing. I'm solid as stone, rigid. He knows better than to act that…_lively_ around me.

"My Harley has no taste, it seems!" He's still trying to push down his dying laughter. I want to yell at him, honestly. I really wish I could shut him the fuck up, like I…shut everyone else the fuck up. Is there no way to silence this hyena? "_Heeeeere_ we go. Lookie lookie!"

I roll my eyes as he throws a book and it slams me in the chest. For a second, I remember all those feelings of complete irritation that make me want to slit the remainder of his face open with a sharp object. Coincidentally, I remind myself that he has _bestowed_ a sharp object _upon_ me.

"The fuck is this?" I turn it over in my hands and frown, almost confused. I don't understand the things he reads, nor why he reads them. I haven't been interested in a book in ages and he has such strange choices. Fiction, always fiction.

The couch rumbles with a sudden earth-shattering leap (see: Cleave likes to make a production out of everything he does) and I almost fall off when he throws himself against my shoulder and stares dead at the book. I give him this funny look, and shove at his cheek.

"Can I…uh…help y—"

"Ye_ssssss_, ya can, girly. Ya can open it so I can read the word_ssssss_ in them there pages."

"Haven't you read thi—"

"Well , I so happen to want to read it _again._ So open the book or hock it over, hear me? Or are we outta q-tips already?"

_Wicked_, whatever this may be, by some guy named Gregory Maguire. As I read the back cover, Cleave's impatient movements become more and more obvious. There's an earthquake under me, because his mantis-legs are jittering like mad. The couch vibrates with the dull, God-like power reserved within his lengthier limbs.

"You gave me a fucking book on the _Wizard of Oz_, Cleveland." He looks at me, practically tilting his head, and gives a chortle of a sound as he pulls the book free of my grasp. –Without warning he takes a handful of pages and violently shreds them out with some psycho glimmer of delight in his dark green eyes. I don't question it, but I know better than to question him at all. He knows three times more about everything than I do. And he makes sure to tell me it, every five seconds.

"No one reads the prologue, no one likes the prologue." He's muttering in eccentric fascination about it by that point, and I'm still skeptical on his literary choices. "Prologue, prologue, prologue."

I open to page one, and when I roll my eyes and begin to read I feel weight on my shoulder. Grunt. Go away? For just five minutes, it's all I want, just go away?

"Cleveland, what are you _doing? _Can't you go play with your Barbies or something?"

From my shoulder, he licks his lips, and his eyes sky-rocket to stare at the ceiling, the corners of his lips turning upward to expose his teeth, his words sarcastically matter-of-fact.

"I'm…uh…_reading."_


	2. Wicked

"None of this will do. Nope, nope, not a bit, no. We gotta ehd-you-mah-kate ya, is what we need to do, we need to teach ya a thing or two."

He's confused me more in the past hour than he has in the week I've known him. Without inhibition or warning he begins throwing books onto a pile, mumbling to himself in that crazy way he's always doing. What is he up to, is what I'd like to know, and what is the purpose.

I've decided that _Wicked_ isn't too bad, but I read at a speed of two and this Glinda broad should be shot for her looks. No one should be allowed be that blonde. It's right up there in the ten freaking commandments. _Thou shalt not, even as a fictional character, make Harley Quinn feel like shit._

I look at the pile of books he's gradually making, and my stomach churns. It's AP English all over again. He's insistent, this little bastard, isn't he?

_The Catcher in the Rye _by J.d. Salinger_, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest _by Ken Kesey(the irony in this destroys me),_ The Meditations _by Marcus Aurelius (there's a fear in my gut the size of Batman's chest), _Phantom _by Susan Kay, _Sex and the City_ by Candace Bushnell (I wait until he's finished, but the big guns are coming out on this one), _Slaughterhouse Five _by Kurt Vonnegut, _Lord of the Flies _by William Golding and _A Clockwork Orange _by Anthony Burgess. I can only stare, intimidated, and feeling smaller every single minute.

Commandment eleven. _Thou shalt not misbehave around the English professor-clown._

"W-W-What do you plan to—"

"Oh re-e-e-e-e_lax_, Harv-cakes. Like I said, I'ma edu-ma-cate ya, is what I'm gonna do. You have two days to read each of these books. For every day you go _over_ the limit, you're stuck sleepin' in bed, uh…" I sleep on the couch, though, why is that a—"_with me."_

My stomach drops. It feels like there's a bowling ball sitting way in my digestive system. He watches the panic run across my face, and the Loki-esque mischief in his eyes dances playfully. His grin is Cheshire, suddenly, and it spreads from ear to ear with ease. I really want to hurt him (see: dismember with a kitchen knife).

"Which means you've got—ah…" He pauses, licks his lips and his eyes roll back into his head. His eyelids drop, and I note for some weird reason that his eyelashes are the same dark gold as his hair. I also ask myself, confused, why I seem to notice all these things about him, "—you've got ee-zack-ly thirty-two hours and twenty-five minutes to finish _Wicked_, or we're bunk-buddies."

I don't want to be your bunk-buddy.

I don't want to be your girlfriend.

I don't even want to breathe your air.

All I want is to sleep on your couch.

I'm like a stray dog who wants a warm place to sleep. I'd rather not be any of the mentioned: Touched, loved, caressed, kissed, cuddled, hugged, breathed on or, above all things, _threatened with a sharp object._

Cleveland has not yet breached the last code, but I'm sure eventually it's coming. He loves his toys so much, I guess I should feel honored he's bestowed upon me even one.

"And if I refuse to sleep in your disease-ridden place _boudoir?_"

"Well, simple then, I ah—ya see, I tie ya to it, and I sit on ya 'til ya sleep. How's that sound?"

"Kinky."

"Good, toots, ee-zackly what I was goin' for."


	3. Girl, Increasingly Interrupted

For the record, thanks so much to all you guys and—no, this isn't a sequel just yet. This is kind of a…how can I put this? It's like a _side project_ leading up to a sequel XD I figured it'd only be fair to have this going, considering I fear it'll take awhile for me to think up another substantial plot. Thanks to everybody for the reviews—welcome to what will be a very daring chapter for me.

XxXxXxXxXxXxXx

"It's no wonder you like this book so much, Cleave."

I snicker and I turn a page. I'm almost twenty pages in, and it's been the entirety of another hour. Man, can I ever read under motivation—in other words, I have no desire to sleep in his _cramped, twin-sized, miniscule _bed.

The thought of being that close to him terrifies me, but the thought of being that close to him for _hours?_ Okay, so even while unconscious, it's just scary. The concept of his terrible, gangly form shoved against me and his breath, his damn breath, I swear it's hotter than hell. Sometimes I catch him and his eyes flick, _up, down_, without fail. His tongue, don't get me started on that.

"Whatcha jabberin' 'bout, girly?"

"Everyone in it so happens to be quite gay, Cleave."

I watch him get up from his chair breezily and he laughs, maniacal, loud, "_O-_kay, Harvey, there's a point where I don't really feel like listenin' to you _cuuuuh_-lever wit, anymore."

My eyebrow quirks, and I watch him toy with the tie stuffed in his vaguely green hair. It falls in funny curls, and then it's the last few hours all over again.

Invasion of privacy.

Three.

Two.

One.

I'm completely orally molested by that point, because he tears the book out of my grip and sits on my knees like it's nothing. I've decided the best way to explain it is that he kisses like a wolverine and he grips like a grizzly bear, and when I try to scurry in some form (see: grab the couch cushions for dear life) I feel his hands on my cheeks, his tongue darting wildly to lick his own lips. His eyes search mine, but all I can do is breathe raggedly and remind myself of the discomfort with his…uh…_position._

"Okay, so you're gonna lee-issen here, girly, and yer gonna listen _gooooood-uh."_ His voice drops, and my nose twitches irritably, but the fact that I can't _twitch away_ makes me panic. "Alllllrighty then. You gotta perty mouth, even I'll admit to that, but here and there are topics we do not _bring up_ in my presence. One of them is the _purrrrrr_-petual discussions of my—ah—" he pauses and his eyes roll back, and then I watch his expression drop. It seems almost bored, his eyebrows settled. His entire face is skeptical, and I'm nearly clawing to get away, "sexuality, is it, Harvey-cakes? Ye_sssssss_. So here's how the cookie crumbles—you _shut_ your, uh, perty mouth, or I shut it _for you._ Oh, and you don't like that, do you?"

My attempts to struggle are in vain, since it's kind of worthless when there's a boulder in your lap. He refuses to move, until eventually I feel his spidery fingers curl all too harshly around my wrists and he hisses through clenched teeth, "No, Harvey doesn't like that one bi_t-uh_. Not at all. Keep ya tongue in ya mouth from time to time, girly, it'll get you in less _teeeee-_rouble that way."

When he climbs off me and I'm still shaking at every inch, all I can do is stare at the book a few feet away from me, lying like a sad, discarded pile on the floor. He throws it back at me and it lands in my lap, and just before he roughly grabs the box of cocoa puffs off the chair and stuffs a mouthful into his face, he barks at me, "Read!"

As far as I'm concerned, I'm speechless and shaking and he doesn't have to tell _me_ twice. I continue gallivanting about the valiant adventures of what I will assume are more odd witches and midget children.

My mind is sufficiently far away.

Was I just molested by Cleveland?

In the distance (see: kitchen) I hear the radio crank up to an excessive volume and something old, familiar starts to blare.

_Beneath the white fire of the moon, love's wings are broken all too soon. We never learn. Hurt together, huuuuuuuurt alone, don't you sooooometimes, wish your heart was a heart of stoooone?_

Cher's half-manly voice echoes through our 'headquarters', and when my mouth, my bruised and aching mouth opens to squeak out something akin to 'which Cher are you attracted to, Cleave, the man side or the woman side?' I snap it shut quickly and think twice.

I need to read faster.

A lot faster.


	4. Promise Breaker

With desperation unparalleled, I find myself trying to skim pages. I've got about four hours left and we've done nothing but sit in dead silence. As Cleave slept, soundly and comfortably in the confines of that bed (see: frightening death trap I don't want to sleep in) I tried desperately to read every single word, but it has only served to do one thing—fly me into a panic attack.

I keep imagining the terrible sensation of him pressed against me.

And not in the way most people want.

I don't deal well with close-quarters-combat.

I'd much rather be cold and alone on my couch.

"Ya know, if you work the same way in relationships as you do when attempting to take in fine lit-oh-rature, I think we're gonna have some problems, toots. I'm afraid I don't do well with the cheatin' type." He casually drops himself in _his_ chair and licks at his lips. His grin is something now that makes my insides knot—he looks triumphant. "You are—ah—yes, that'_ssss_ right, you're disqualified from the comp-peh-tition."

I pale and stare at him, wide-eyed. My hands are shaking at page one-ninety-seven. My worst nightmares have come true.

I have to manage physical contact with the bisexual Cirque du Soleil reject.

His feet slam up on the table between us, and he lets his arms outstretch behind him, whistling with a merry air. He's won and he knows it, and I glower with an angry expression as I watch him drown in his victory.

Bastard.

I liked living with Batman better.

Well, not really.

"I will sell you my soul and the twenty dollar contents of my bank account if you don't make me sleep with you."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, girly," He grins again and he reminds me of that crocodile from Peter Pan. His mouth is all big and shiny and cavernous—I feel like I'm about to be swallowed by the jaws of clown-death, "Little _forrrr_-ward there, aren't we?"

I realize that all I want, so desperately, is to feel and look utterly disgusted with him. With any other guy, or as any other girl, I think I should smack him for making an assumption like that, but I bear it with a usual apathy and just set my face into a bored glare.

"You _wish_ I would think of you like that."

"Oh, but ya see, girly—" He leans in, a wrist dangling limply over his bare knee. His eyebrows are raised, and now the smack-you-silly sensation is beginning to kick in. "I _ka-white_ know what goes on in the makings of that _tiny_ brain of yours, and that means I know what goes on in your itty bitty head, and one of the things, oh – yes, yes, _yes_—one of those things _are_ thoughts of me in _exactly _the way you don't want."

"Who—said so, mister mad hatter?"

"_Rrrrr­_abid hatter is really more correct, Harv-cakes."

"Yeah, one of these days you're gonna foam at the fucking mouth."

I can only flinch and glare at him. I keep expecting him to leap at me; like a lion on a gazelle, or like a largely overshadowing psycho on a very helpless, smaller one.

"I'm not sleeping in your bed, Cleveland."

"Well, then that makes you a promise-breaker," Suddenly, I watch as something slips straight out of the couch cushion. He toys it playfully through his fingers, his yellow teeth bared in that maddened growl again, but his eyes are brighter than ever. The switch-blade subtly flicks between each finger, expertly, like someone who would flip a coin over and over, then he speaks as he gestures, laughing under his breath, "You know what I do to promise-breakers, Harvey? I cook 'em in the big cauldron I keep stashed way under the sink-uh for _Ha-lo-ween."_

I wish there was a handbook for this.

'How to Survive Life With A Spontaneous, Mentally Imbalanced, Gender-Confused Man-Slut'.


	5. Streets of Philly Cheesesteak

There's no way to escape it. I realize it at three in the morning when my own sleepiness is beginning to kick in and all my nerves are sparking and alive with this crippling anxiety.

Cleave's gloating over his victory. I'm not sure why sleeping in the same bed is 'victory' to him. I guess he more or less just fishes for whatever wins he can get out of the pot. I can always pretend that I fight in my sleep, and accidentally knee him right in the family jewels.

_And the poets down here don't write nothin' at all, they just stand back and let it all be. And in the quick of the night they reach for their moment and try to make an honest stand… but they wind up wounded… not even dead…tonight in…jungle…land..._

The first thing I want to know is why The Boss is coming from the kitchen.

The Boss is too good for that kitchen.

When I wander in, poke my head into the doorway, Cleave's bopping his head to the beat. His hand smacks rhythmically and his foot jitters wildly, and I want to know _why, _of all things, he is listening to _Bruce Springsteen._

"How do you _liiiiike_ this stuff, Harv-cakes? It's…uh—so—ah—" he pauses, looks up at me. He isn't grinning, he isn't smiling, but there's confusion written all over, "—so…uh—sad."

What do I say to that? I haven't once had a _real_ conversation with this guy in the week and a half of torrid mania I've known him, should I start now? What do you say to a mentally imbalanced dude with the knife skills of a surgeon?

I pull up a chair (is it painted with _balloons? _What is this, a five year old birthday party?) and mutter, "I like sad shit, Cleave."

He leans forward, like we're playing poker, like he's calling my bluff. I can feel him breathe on my cheek, and his eyebrows rise all the way up. Sometimes, I figure, he looks like a person. My best guess is that the Prozac keeping him so chipper's run out, "_Why?"_

I shrug again and scoot my chair backward. He stares over at the little speakers playing the contents of _my_ iPod and the corner of his lip twitches, just the right. His nose wrinkles, like he's not pleased. I lean over and click through the menu, slipping past the large amounts of Backstreet Boy material (shut up, shut up, shut up) and settle on _Streets of Philadelphia _by Bruce Springsteen.

His expression settles into an even more agitated one, only now the corners of his mouth are _really _going.

He looks like he's going to spontaneously combust.

On the plus side, if he does, I'm free.

On the minus side, if he does, I'm free.

"And people say _I_ oughta smile more."

He dissolves into an awkward wheeze of a giggle at his own bad joke. My amusement is dead, and has been for quite awhile now. I'm a pretty useless sidekick.

"Ye know, ya cuh-ramp my style, toots."

"What? And you improve mine?" I shoot right back at him. The digital clock says it's 3:15 in the morning. It may as well read 0:00, because time is so long gone it isn't even funny. I feel, here, like I make my own time. It's weird, when you get this sensation like you're living off the map.

This must be what Oz feels like, I figure.

Fucking stupid _Wicked _novel.

Crawling its way into my brain.

Does anyone seriously like Glinda in that book? Is it possible to love the pathetically bubbly blonde with an underlying layer of revulsion?

_Why_ in _hell_ is that other girl _green?_

…What the hell am I even thinking about?

"…Yer makin' me wanna Philly cheesesteak, Ha_rrrrr_v."

"You _are _a Philly cheesesteak, Cleave."


	6. Underappreciated

If I think back, I can retrace all my biggest mistakes.

I was reading _Catcher in the Rye_ on _my_ couch, when I just couldn't hold it back anymore. I was too tired to see straight, or listen to the fading sounds of _The Essential Bruce Springsteen _album bellowing from the kitchen. The words were melting and I was afraid the ink would stain my lap, so I just let myself nod off, just for a few seconds—

Which must have invoked the great beast from within its lair.

In a half-coma, I feel my head loll against something fairly solid, and a nasal voice mutters something along the lines of, "Pretty, pretty _priiiincess."_

"Prin-cess," I moan under my breath, too out of it to care. I feel myself jiggled a little, kind of shaken, and dropped not-so-lightly on something I bounce on. I figure extensive amounts of trauma knock a person out good and right, once they feel secure enough to _really_ sleep.

Insomnia wasn't for me. That weird, drifting feeling like the world is a video-tape you're watching through a dusty, badly-qualified lens and there's nothing you can do to change the ending. Only, it's not so much the ending you're trying to change as the entire movie.

Something pushes my head down onto something softer than the something I hit, and I'm out like you wouldn't believe.

(An indeterminable amount of time later, in a galaxy far, far away—or a run-down hell-hole just outside Gotham)

When I wake up, I realize there's a horrendous amount of bone crushing pressure around my waist. My shoulders are slumped into themselves. I can hardly breathe. It's like one of those head-crab things from that Half-Life game has got me, only it's not glued to my head.

My senses creep back to me like water escaping from a hole poked in the bottom of a full cup. I sort of realize things, little by little. It's morning. It's cold in here. The bed-sheets are on the floor, and I'm wondering where my pants (or shirt, for that matter) have gone to. I don't enjoy lying around in my underwear and—

Horror sets in.

Bitter, painful, stinging horror.

Cleave is wrapped around me from behind.

I am half naked.

I am—

I am—

I am panicking.

I do the first thing that comes to mind. I rear back and I jerk, hard enough that I hit the most vital part of everything. He lets out a wheeze, peppered by a million and one suppressed giggles, but I only find myself squeezed _harder._

"I was expectin' –buuuuh-reakfast in bed, but this is an in-tuh-resting alternative."

"Shove it up your ass, Cleave, the fuck are you doing?!"

"Sleepin' with you, what's it look like, Harv-cakes?!"

He lets out another typhoon of gasping breaths and I wriggle again, until he _breathes_ all over my ear and hisses into it. He sort of bites at the end and growls against me that if I move another muscle he's going to tear my jugular out with that harpy he gave me. I fall still enough that I can hear myself breathe angrily, and he lets go enough that _at least_ he's not _nibbling_ anymore.

"Sheesh, girly, didn't anyone ever teach you to relax?"

My stomach feels like the Tower of Terror right now.

"Where are my _clothes_, Cleveland?"

"Wherever I want 'em to be, Ha_rrrrr_vey."

"I'm serious, Cleave."

"Oh, no, no, _no_, that won't duh-ooooo_ooo_. Serious? Not allowed in _this_ house, girly-girl. How's about ol' Cleave-uh-land cuts ya a deal?"

His grin is pressed against my face. I can feel it on my cheek, the twitch that jolts so violently across his scar. He's taking in the taste of my unease, I can tell, and wallowing in my sense of insecurity.

I keep silent.

He doesn't seem to want to give up.

So he shakes me, rubbing his cheek against mine like a cat does with a pair of whiskers. He makes that sound, that hollow purr, and I can't help it. I give this squeak of a noise and try to calm myself down enough to stop having a panic attack, one sinking into the regions of my brain.

"—What kind of deal?"

"You, in my bed, forevuuuu_rrrrr_."

"Can't you just hire a hooker?"

"Not one like you, Harvey-kins."


	7. Sexually Misfortunate Incidents

I refuse to speak up. I won't say a word, not a peep, not an utter. Giving in to him will just mean he'll play more of his games with me. Every muscle in my body has clenched to an obscene degree. The twitching in my stomach is painful, but he keeps tracing funny shapes on my skin. The hand not doing that is clawed in a vice grip across my waist. Until I answer, he's going to drive me bat-shit bananas.

"So, Harvey, Harvey, Harvey-gal—" I can't lie that he doesn't creep me out to a ridiculous extent. There's this…_something_ in his voice, this _something_ that makes my skin crawl. His hand wanders to the left side of my chest, and he rests his palm there. I twitch. I can't tell if I'm repulsed or angry. I should smack him, and even if I jerk, I can't fight his grip. "Who ripped this out, hmm, hmm? Hee-_oo_ made you damaged goods?"

I think the better question is who made _him_ damaged goods. Then again, I'm not really so sure you can call him _damaged goods. _Destroyed, obliterated, injured, decimated goods, maybe.

But oh, that's what makes him _such_ fun.

"Well, girl-_lee_, you can't just tell me that you, uh—" He pauses, and when he licks his lips, with me lacking this much clothing, I feel severely disconcerted, "—got this way all on your own. _Look _at you! Ha_ha! _I've never seen anyone fuh-_linch_ this much!"

His laughter doesn't amuse me. I resign myself to imagining what he would look like if I tore his vocal cords out and he tried to talk making only guttural sounds. If I robbed him of his enunciation, what would happen?

"Ya know, I don't enjoy bein' ignored, _Harveykins._"

I roll my eyes and when I try to squiggle away, even a little, I feel him on my ear yet again. He's exploiting me. I know it, I feel it, and it makes my stomach acids produce more stomach acids to eat _those _stomach acids.

"The funny thing about _you_, babydoll, is that, ah—" He settles there. He's so condescending it's revolting, and my insides turn like the engine of a car. His laugh is shoved right near my face. If it was a tangible object, I'd imagine it something akin to silly string, "—you don't respond well to _reaaaal_ threats, you have your own—ah, _brand_ of threat."

My mouth is shut, and it's not opening.

He'll have to pry speech from my mouth with the Jaws of Life.

"Who had the _noive_ to shatter this? What kinda dee_-spick-able _fella would have the _guts_ for such an _action?"_ I feel her fingers trace downward, just under my breast, just down my side, toying pleasantly with my hip. I've been holding this breath for more than ten minutes, and I can see his unruly, blonde curls falling all over the place as he cranes his neck to stare down at me.

I swear, his expression is like a coyote waiting for dinner.

"Hah, _Harvey?"_ He leans in a little more, a little more, until his nose is inches from mine and his eyes, the darkest shade of weird green, refuse to rip mine from their captivity. I get as defensive as can possibly be, I struggle to be nasty, to even so much as hint for a vile joke…but I can't open my mouth. It's like there's an invisible hook from _those eyes_ to my mouth, like he's sewn my speech-pipe shut just by watching.

All at once, his watery blink releases me from my spell. His lips dance in that effervescent grin, and his spidery fingertips tickle my skin, "Who s-said anyone broke my heart?"

My voice dies off. He's pretty much ending me slowly. He smells like strawberry mints and old-lady-makeup.

He backs off but I wrench out of his grip enough to stare warily at him. His head lowers to the juncture just below my ear, the skin at my neck, and I wonder if the sides of his mouth will tear at the seams and he'll be the Oogie Boogie from _The Nightmare Before Christmas._ By the way, I hate that movie.

"Well, gal like you—gal like you—ah," he pauses and I feel his tongue, cool and terribly uncomfortable, flick out for a second and stroke at the base of my earlobe. He stops after one second, a lizard and a pervert, in all respects of both words, "—gal like you doesn't just up and hate the _whoooole_ wide world-uh for no reason. We both used to be _pretty_, Harv-cakes."

He purrs darkly and I swear I feel him inhale (see: snort cocaine off my neck, at least, that's what I hope he's doing) my scent like a stalker in Brad Pitt's apartment. I make another slam to try and get away, but he curls a little closer, holds a little tighter. A teasing little tone, he purrs again, the heaviest thing I've ever had the misfortune of being stuffed up against, "Uh, uh, uh, we're only puh-_laying_, Harv-cakes, don't make the game more _comp-lee-oh-cated _than it needs to be."

This time, I'm _really _fucked.

The cops are going to have to pry my cold, dead corpse from his warm, vibrating hands.

The Batman is going to have to intervene in a fit of what I wouldn't doubt as necrophilia, if he holds on any tighter.

If I were religious, I'd pray.

But I don't think there are many Gods that can stop Cleveland.


	8. Tie the Tie

Wow, an author's note! :D Haha. Well, when people ask questions, I very well have to answer them, don't I? To respond to **K**, I wasn't really intending on making Cleave all too canon, but some of the greatest relationships are ridiculous, incomprehensible ones, I always say. XD Poison Ivy/Harley Quinn is a favorite pairing of mine and, though I'll admit they can be considered canon-ish if you do your research, they're a crack-pairing that remains non-canon (insert grumble and fist-shake here). Actually, if you check out my other Batman one-shot, **Serpentine**, you'll find my non-Cleave-ish Joker. I figured Cleave just seems so much more…cheerfully pleasant, since he's just a normal dude. XD Thanks to **FoolsBeloved** for catching my random, accidental typos which I need to watch more closely, and thanks to **HarlequinSequins**, for being my inspirational-type pile of awesome. And any suggestions anyone has for what Bat-baddie they'd like to see in the sequel for **Dark Side of the Moon**, please, drop it in a review. I have a foggy idea, but I'm still sitting on it, idly. Thanks to all of you lovely people, and on with the show!

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Unfair.

Unfair is all I can think as I feel his lips graze from my shoulder all the way down to my thigh. I won't lie; he's good at what he does. His creepy, unnerving, repulsive tongue-trick has more uses than just making me squirm in anxiety. I figure, by this point, I'm way too scared to do a thing but lie there, cold and dead and worthless. I feel sick from way deep down. He purrs like a defective motor.

And, suddenly, all at once, it's gone.

It's so strange, but the eternal warmth, no, the fucking _heat_ at my back relinquishes and I'm left in a sheen of cold sweat, panting and panicking in the back of my brain.

There's a beep, a shrill, high pitched one and I hear his wild giggle erupt from behind me. I don't have the nerve to turn around, but I hear Cleave remark, "Saved by the bell, Ha_rrrvs! _I'll be back in a jiff, be a good girl and get back to reading. Idle mind needs some sharp-_uh­-_ning, if you ask me."

You have _got_ to be kidding me.

I was just two seconds from being raped and now I learn that he was _kidding._

_You_ have _got_ to be _kidding me._

I don't comprehend his sense of humor, or if you can even call it that at all. I can hear his footsteps, his uneven shuffle, as he casually tugs on his purple suit-jacket. The mattress creaks, and I finally sit up to see why it is he's went from the fucking devil to a goofy though loveable Disneyland character in three seconds flat.

"Do me a favor, Ha-Ha-Harvey?" His hand slaps down, the purple glove shiny in the dim overhead lighting. His fingers look thicker in the material, "You know how to tie a tie?"

Did his momma not teach him this? What do I look like, his _wife?_

"What are you, fi-five? Can't you just—"

His hand cups my chin and he leans in, hot enough that his breath falls on my face, and with a maddened lick he grins and mutters, quite strongly, "_Tie. The. Tie."_

Today he smells like orange tic-tacs, my least favorite flavor. I'm very partial to the little white ones, because I believe they taste like marshmallows before the full-on minty tang kicks in.

I wonder if this is my sick rite of passage, but I accept this and shakily wrap my hands around his drab, olive-and-beige, diamond-patterned tie. It's a stark contrast against the rest of his outlandish physique. He's gangly, tall, awkward, but he carries himself as though he's a weight-lifter. His swagger is noticeable, but the pride embedded in it is what makes it legendary. The way he walks is like a combination between primitive man and Hercules.

I start to loop it, anxious, and when I pull the knot I give a half-jerk when he leans forward to kiss me deeply and squeeze my chin, purring and licking at my lips briefly. He smirks, and he just mumbles in his lower tone, "You kissed _back_, sweetie-pie."

I hate that he mocks me, but I'm dumbfounded as he evenly tucks the tie into the vest.

Aw, hell, he got makeup all over me!

"Guess I found a new and in-vee-oh-ventive way to get _juuuust_ the right smudge to my face-paint, hah, toots? Places to go, bats to see, don't wait up for me-hee-hee!"

With a slam of the door, I can realize that I'm just sitting there, my eyes wide and my mouth hanging slack. If people could produce venom, he would piss it. If human beings could entice with strictly proximity, he would—well, that's considered a pheromone, isn't it? He reeks of them well enough.

He'll be back eventually.

I need to find my clothes.


	9. Denial and Caffeine

So, I have to apologize for my…sluggishness in updating. XD I've been knee-deep in useless college work that I don't quite understand, but now I have time to do such things! Don't worry, my friends, I wouldn't abandon this, I love it too much. Ha ha, but, anyway, I don't own anyone except Harvey and Cleave and, without further ado, on with the show!

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I wait and, after that little display of circus affection, I can't help but get to thinking. I think, and I think, and I think thoughts that I wish didn't exist. I'm starting to play his game, unconsciously, unwillingly, but I am. His tiny gestures (see: things that frighten me out of my brain) are all—

Dear God, I'm in true-clown-love.

I can only sit at the edge of the bed and stare unbelievingly into space. This is ridiculous.

I finally manage to get some form of clothing on, even though it's not mine. Cleave has hidden my favorite shirt, though I can honestly say I could care less about the jeans. I'm going to be very upset, though, if he doesn't give me back my Springsteen merchandise. That's some break-up material, right there.

Did I just think the words 'break-up' in the midst of a faux relationship?

Oh, fuck me.

He's brainwashed me into thinking this really _is_ romantic involvement. Is he really talented at manipulation, or am I seriously in a functional…association?

This is repulsive.

I try to cope with that feeling for a little while as I riddle through Cleveland's clothing choices. I happen across a pair of boxers with the tiny Nintendo One-Up Mushrooms (Nintendo? More fodder for a breakup, I'm more of XBOX girl) and a shirt that says 'Celine Dion: Las Vegas Tour'. I note that I cannot pass up the opportunity, and throw on the t-shirt I am narrowly swimming in.

My guess is: this will not end well.

How can you let that go, though? I mean…Celine Dion.

I let myself crack a smile and a chuckle at how…positively drowned I feel within the confines of his clothing. I feel twelve times smaller than the actual size, and the alarming sensation is that I feel so warm within this bastard's outfit. Oh God, he's really done it.

I should be horrified, so I sit at the edge of the bed and wait; subtly calm for the panic I feel is going to set in.

The abnormality of it all is that…it doesn't. Something else, though, interrupts me as I swing my legs childishly on top of the psychedelic mattress.

_I know who I want to take me home…_

The irony, the _sheer_ irony of my phone ringer irritates me, but I only glare dumbly at it as it does a vibrating dance all over the dresser. I hum with the song, in fact, while I try to figure out whom in the ever-loving _fuck _'Mistah J' is and why he seems to be trying to get in touch with me.

Am I being stalked?

Are telemarketers seriously getting to me in a secret, underground lair of hemp?

Irritably, I flip it up and grind out, into the receiver, "Uh, yeah?"

Insert eye roll here. I get up to check myself into the fun-house mirror stashed in the corner, leaning in closely enough to see my own face. My eyes have turned a brain-mush shade of grey, as is the sometimes-habit in the dark. The cloudy color overtakes the continuously mushy brown. I busily note that for a few more minutes, listening to the hilarity-ridden laughter on the other end of the line.

I pause, and realize that _this_ is 'Mistah J'.

"Hoo hoo hoo _hoo_, Harvey-cakes! I just wanted to give you a jingle and ask if you'd like a fuuuuuur-rappuccinno?" My nose wrinkles, confused, and I wonder what to ask a psychotic, murdering clown to pick me up from starbucks.

However, just to be safe, I ask _very_ slowly, "Are you sure this frappuccinno is made of…you know…_coffee?_"

"What else'd it be made of, toots? Sheesh, you got rocks in that little head? Caramel or vanilla?"

"I'm guilty by association right now, aren't I? You're holding someone up for this frappuccinno, aren't you? Please, p-p-p—" I stop, assess my words, diminish the stutter quickly, "please tell me you aren't?"

"Whaddya talkin' about, _Hahvey? _I'm in my see-oh-vilian clothes," His voice is tinged with a smug edge, and I hear him paint on the silliest mock-Scottish accent I've ever heard, "Doo ye think me daft, laddie?"

"Get me an espresso brownie."

"That'll cost ya—hum—" I listen and I hear him, swiftly, lick his lips into the phone, dropping his voice to a subtle purr in that I-hope-no-one-else-hears-me way, "_ex-tee-ra."_

"I'll show you ex-tee-ra."

And I hang up the phone.

Just like that, in his Celine Dion shirt, with no convictions and no guilt.

I snort, talk to the air beside me, the oxygen-fabricated life-form sharing my bed, "Perv."


	10. Inappropriate

If it's possible, the comfort I'm beginning to gain is unearthly. His Nintendo boxers which remind me of the likes of a five year old fit in that perfect, boyfriend kind of way I'm not so used to. I'm still brooding on the concept that I'm the girlfriend of the most dangerous man in all of Gotham City. Well, second most dangerous. I rate Batman as the first.

To this day, I cannot think the word 'Batman' without a full-bodied shiver.

I'm almost surprised the guy didn't take my jaw clean the fuck off.

I settle down, though, and since I finished _Catcher in the Rye _earlier (and have spent an hour or so pondering when Holden Caulfield will shut up), I crack open _A Clockwork Orange._

(Perhaps an hour later, after several worried thoughts of homicides being committed and a box of malomars I'm not totally sure are still good)

"Oh, my nuh-hawty princess of the night!" The door slams open, and I just quirk my eyebrows upward to signify I'm paying attention. He stands in the doorway in a pair of plain jeans and a (IS THAT MINE?!) Bruce Springsteen t-shirt that fits him all too snugly. None of my clothing is tight; I'm too concerned with comfort to let vanity ruin that.

I resist the need to laugh riotously, though, because it's comes up a little short at his waist and I can see all the bony curves of his chest.

"Yoo-hoo-hoo, toots."

"Reading, Cleave."

"In my _murrrr_-chandise, may I add."

The bed creaks as he plops himself down, noisily slurping through an over-chocolate'd macchiato and scanning my page intently. I note how much better it feels to look at him out of my makeup.

That get-up will always terrify the ever-loving hell out of me.

"You know, I could make fun of y-you for liking Celine Dion. Not even in a gay way; no_ one _likes Celine Dion."

"I resent that!" He pouts, like he's hurt, like I've harmed his imaginary feelings. He slides a hand to my knee like I'm not noticing, and his eyebrows raise, wiggle. He's all grins and chuckles; he's all fun and games. I wonder how this _thing_ is a murderer, "_I_ like Celine Dee-on."

"Her accent makes her sound too decadent. It's like she over-emphasizes the eloquence. Exaggeration of words makes me annoyed." I brush his hand from my leg and wonder where in _the hell my food is._

I remember saying espresso brownie.

Two options.

One: I get this brownie.

Two: I leave you forever.

I'm honest. This is a deathly serious issue; I _need_ this brownie.

"Well, see, if you're—uh—" His eyes roll ,and he licks at his lips almost ferociously—this time, he does it twice in a row, "lookin' for that deeeee-sert o' yours, I can tell ya exactly where it would happen to reside."

"This isn't funny, Cleave."

"Oh, con-tree-air, shweet_haht_, I think it's absolutely rib-tickling," For emphasis (oh, how I hate emphasis) he giggles, but he turns the octave up about halfway to squeeze every triumphant form of glee out of it. He knows my moods, why does he push them? "It's in my pants, dear-uh."

"That's even less funny than you, Cleave."

"Do I—ah—look like a guy who'd lie to you, Harvey-cakes?"

"The dessert is in your pants, Cleave?"

"Whoever said a word about the dee-sert? Sheesh, and here I thought it was en-_tirely_ something else you were scouring so fuh-vently for."

I can't help but roll my eyes. Again, my invisible friend beside me is subject to my mutter of, "Perv."

"Oh, but I understand so well, Harvey. You just can_not_ resist me. However do you keep yourself off of me? I mean, come—ah—_on."_

"You wish, Horny McClownland."

"You forgot to ask about where your _fuuuuur_-rappuccinno was."

Rehearsed, I drone out, sighing. I give in; I just can't help myself, "Where is my frappuccinno, Cleave?"

"Someplace a little South'uh where I mentioned that 'something else' to be."

I find, all at once, his grin is far more repulsive sans makeup than plus makeup. His eyes glitter in excitable sparks, and somehow I realize his sense of humor is less meant to offend and more the caliber of an eighth grader on prom night. As he watches me, he licks at his lips again, the color a slightly irritated red. I go back to reading, and he cackles quietly to himself as he gets up and stalks over to where his duffel bag is dropped. He slouches so much I compare him to Quasimodo.

"Wanna know where the straw for it is, toots—"

"Not particularly."


	11. Unfair Advantage X Part Un

Well, ladies and gentlemen, I've finally decided to divulge Harvey's oh-so-thrilling backstory! (As if, yeah, sure.) Really, it's not that fascinating, but it'll let the pieces fall into place as to why she's a bitch. XD A horrendous one, at that. Anyway, without further ado, underhanded methods to truth-telling ahoy! Thanks to everyone, and thanks especially to **Miss-Emotive**, whose awesome fan-art work will be up on my profile page once my profile stops acting like a whore. I love you guys, thanks for reading :D!

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It's about twenty minutes of me just sipping the coffee until this horrible sensation starts to sink in. I wonder what's wrong with this chocolate syrup (didn't I ask for a vanilla latte..?) because it's certainly making me dizzy.

It's like the entire edge of my vision is in fuzzy, That '70's Show flashback mode, and I'm incapable of focusing where I probably should be focusing. Instead, I feel everything fade around and colors mesh with colors which mesh with other colors. I swoon from the dresser I sit on top of, and arms too strong to be so chicken-scrawny swoop me up without a difficulty. In a normal mindset, I might've found myself enticed by how slightly dashing that one motion was.

Instead, with this much nausea and perplexed dizziness, I just hate the fact that he rattles me around.

Am I sick?

What is this shit?

It's like he reads my mind and when he sets me on the bed. He gnaws lightly at his lip, clears his throat, and speaks with a merry timbre, "That would be a _veeery_ small dosage of valium mixed into your caffeine. –No no, _Hahvey_, I'm not going to do what you think I'm going to do. I mean, I may be a monster, but I could get you to do it without the use of sedatives," He pauses and his grin, his moving, yellowy grin is shark-ish, "promise. Anywho-zles, today we're going to see what makes you tick-tick-tock, Harv-cakes, because it's tickling at my brain just as much as I'm sure it's gnawing at yours."

My attempt to move is almost depleted. Motor skills fail because my hands don't seem to recognize my desire to punch him in the face. My legs don't seem to recognize my desire to move. Most importantly, my foot doesn't seem to recognize my want to jab him in the breadbox.

"But—I've got a solution to your…ah—" He purrs, curls his fingers at my cheek. They stroke mockingly, and he hisses, his tongue almost vibrating, "ree-luctance. Would you like to meet my little buddy?"

No. I want to say. No, I don't want to meet your little buddy. I want another frappuccinno. I want my motor skills back. I want to know why you're playing with my head.

I see something between his teeth as he climbs into the bed, and sits on his knees to clamp a spidery hand at my wrist and hold me down. It doesn't matter, because I can't even jerk, let alone shove the human rock off me.

And there's a stab. It's all too agonizing, a quick pinch, but for one second it feels like he's driving a harpy into my arm. It's wet, cold, and then the pressure subsides and he pats me like saying 'good job, kid, you done me proud'. I can't imagine how hateful I must seem right now.

"This," He grins, and he holds up a long, clear object with a shiny metal point that won't stop moving. Trying to focus on it makes my head spin, it makes me feel urged to pretty much toss my cookies, so I stop and wait for the inevitable speech he's about to give, "Sodium Penthanol, my sweet, medically handicapped little buddy. That's what this golden little ambrosia in this here hype-ee-oh-dermic needle is. Sodium. Penthanol."

I almost feel the need to remind him that those words mean nothing to me in the least, that they make no sense, but like I expect the self-satisfying prick keeps talking—

"Sodium Penthanol has the nifty little ability to lift a person's inhibitions and force them to answer questions. You wanna buzz in on just what Sodium Penthanol _is_, Harvey-cakes?"

I just roll on my side, before a hand lashes out at my waist and he rolls me back. His eyes search mine, and I feel his face deathly close. Those eyes half-lid, sedate, and he positions his lips just an inch away. His voice is the lowest purr, and in some dream his grin cracks off his face in a thousand repulsive shards. They cut me. "_Truth serum, _my little Harley Quinn. I want to know what makes you…that enchanting _you_ I so adore. I want to know because you—oh, ho, ho, _you_ won't tell me."

In his awkward lean, his hand caresses at my hair, soft, eager and he doesn't move. In my drugged hippie-daze I hear his voice through a tunnel in a tunnel in a tunnel. It's an echo amplified, "I did tell you once, Ha_rrr_vey, pretty bird like you, should be singin'."


	12. Unfair Advantage X Part Deaux

It's not right. It's the only thought in my busted up head between the urge to vomit and my gradually fading motor skills. First, I could twitch my fingers, now I refuse to say a word. I drift, and he pulls me back in with a half-growl of a sound.

Not so tenderly, though, he nearly snaps a hand at the back of my neck and flicks me upright, forcing me against the bedpost. I shut my eyes, and I open them, and I shut them, and I open them, and my head swims. Some foreign, miniature versions of The Beatles trounce by in my head, singing a jaunty version of 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds'.

And I hum along, until he claps his hands in front of my face and I narrowly avoid a heart attack.

"First question," he hisses cheekily, and I note that today he smells like an obnoxious amount of Sour Patch Kids and traces of something like the taste you get from leaving a Warhead under your tongue, "Where were you born, Harvs?"

My eyelids droop and the low, dull "hmmm_mmmmmmmm…_" sound I release drags on, before I focus on him as evenly as possible, "Outside—Gotham."

"Outside Gotham," He purrs, but he drags it out into a weird hissing sound, breathing the words through his two front teeth. He clicks his tongue against them, and in my state his eyes look like moving coal pits. "What about mommy and daddy, Harvey? What about _them?_"

In the more normal part of my brain, the one not addled with his varieties of drugs, I ask him just _who_ he thinks he is, my therapist? That part of my brain is silenced, the switch flicked off.

"What, toots, come on? Orphan? Was daddy a big, mean ol' tyrant, did mommy not hug you? What's the dealie­-_o_?"

In the still-sane chambers of my mind, I snap that he should quit prying and probing at me and back off. I can faintly envision myself taking a metal bat to his misshapen skull and smashing to smithereens the remnants of his once pretty face.

He's poking where he shouldn't poke.

I'm not a relaxed person.

"Everyone's got parents, Ha_r_vey, but my best guess is that yours are less parents and more liiiiittle, jiggling skeletons strung up all pretty in your closet. Like Halloween decorations!" He bellows a maddened laugh and claps his hands in a way that, I swear, reminds me uncannily of an excited baby seal.

"Wanted..." the words come out in an awkward slur, and my head lazily lolls around and around. I'm beginning to make _myself_ dizzy. My fingers fumble awkwardly, tap against the wooden headboard in complete lack of rhythm.

"Ye_sssssss?"_ He encourages, and leans forward. My neck tilts at an awkward angle, and despite the fact that I sit right in the middle of his palm my eyes can't veil the pure, utter contempt that surges through me right now, right at this very moment. It's a hot, boiling betrayal of trust. _This _is the final straw.

"Pay-- rents… parents," My eyebrow furrows in discomfort but I feel the cool flesh of his palm against my cheek. It pats, lightly, then at the other, back and forth, back and forth.

"Ay-pay attention-ay." Is what I swear I hear him say, but I can't really tell if I'm right or wrong.

_Ix-nay on the upid-stay! –who you callin' upid-stay?!_

That's the thought that pops, with a vengeance, into my brain. The sound of Shenzi, the hyena, and Bonzai, arguing brightly in vivid yowls within my brain. Ed laughs maniacally, but I realize, it's not _Ed_ that's laughing.

It's Cleave. Frustrated and dark, it's Cleave. But all at once the thousand colors he seems made up of form a thousand more, and one of them reaches out to grab me by the collar of his Las Vegas Tour '07 Celine Dion Limited Edition T-shirt.

"Did ya have 'em?! Did ya _have_ parents, _Hahvey!?" _I realize, slowly, as sluggish and limp as I am—

I'm frustrating him. He's about to burst with how annoyed he is, and some part of me feels suddenly guilty that I'm a case that can't be cracked. Apparently, my 'inhibitions' aren't what I _won't_ say, but my unwillingness to say it.

So I tell him. I spill it all. I tell him about my alcoholic, gambling-fiend parents who wanted a boy but got a girl; a girl they decided to name Harvey to spite that son they didn't get. I tell him about what it felt like to be the completely invisible kid—the writer-kid who nobody saw. I tell him about the three ex-boyfriends, three separate times I thought I was in love; three separate times I let myself get the fuck kicked out of me for that love's sake. I tell him about good ol' mom and pop, who stole my paychecks from that internship at that newspaper to play poker. I tell him, finally, about the eviction notice on our house; my giving up on everything, the loss of a valuable internship, and of that green stuff needed to pay the rent. I tell him of the backbone I lacked to tell my parents how wrong they were for stealing from me and treating me like the two-headed circus freak just because I happened to fall short of a few giggles. In a half-collapsible state wearied by medication and exhaustion, I tell him about how I'm so _fucking sick_ of the way karma works. What goes around comes around…where's my come-around?

I tell him, in the foggiest state I've ever experienced, that he's my come-around; that _he's_ the karmic retribution I've been sitting tight for. That he's the happy thing to outweigh all my sad things. Even if my sad things won't disappear.

He blinks, and stares at me with that mouth-corner-twitch as though he doesn't know exactly how to respond. He understands every slurred word out of my mouth, every trip over a syllable I make.

This is Gotham City, I think.

Everyone's got drunk, gamble-fiend parents. Everyone's got a sad story to tell. Mine doesn't end on the triumphant end; mine comes through to the sewers rather than the surface.

I've reinvented myself. With the name Harley Quinn, I've taken grip on an identity that shoved out the pathetic old Harvey I couldn't even stand.

Pathetic, take-advantage-of-me Harvey.

And people wonder why I'm frustrated.

The air is still and so are we. In awkward tumbles of sounds, I manage out, "Can ah ple-yuse jus' go ta sleep now?"

My passion blinds and confuses him, my brief moments, earlier, of life, and he nervously jams a hand in his hair, his unrelentingly dark blonde hair, and nods vigorously. He looks more like a bobble-head than an actual person, to be honest.

So I roll over, and my eyes drop shut. I hug his pillow.

It smells like strawberry mentos.

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Ps: Check out the nifty artwork by **Miss-Emotive** on my profile page. It's…nifty, and well worth a look and a bit of a gape. It's radical stuff.


	13. Aftermath X You're Bleeding

_You….change your mind…like a girl…changes clothes…you…PMS…like a bitch… I would know…_

That is the sound that I wake up to. Some low-pitched singer blasting from the inevitable kitchen and wrecking up my eardrums. To my surprise, it flickers suddenly when I groan, and shifts to something I…_like. _

_She lies and says she's in love with him, can't find a better man…she dreams in color, she dreams in red, can't find a better man..._

The world is an unintentional carousel when I swing my legs over to the side of the bed. There's a miniscule red dot at my forearm, and I stare almost deeply at it. What is it? All I can remember is some form of hysterical hyena-laugh. I slip my glasses onto my face and shuffle into the kitchen. I'm not nauseous, but all these colors, all these flashes spinning around and around. He fiddles with something small and shiny at the table, and I pinch the bridge of my nose in an effort to center my balance there. I feel like a prisoner.

"You…like Pearl Jam?"

He looks up at me. His eyes are sallow within their abysmally black confines. He's 'in costume', as I like to call it, and a blossoming line of bloody red invades his white makeup. It streaks right across his cheek, thick, gooey. His tongue darts out the corner of his mouth, and like he has to wrestle it down he clamps his teeth to steady it.

"On the—_oh_-casion I enjoy Pearl Jam, yeap." My iPod cradles into the speaker set…which I notice, and try to push a joke down about, is a miniature couple of hot pink systems. Seriously, he just doesn't get worse, does he?

I realize, suddenly, how awkward, how truly painful the air is to breathe.

"The lead singer always reminded me of Kurt Cobain with a frog in his throat, or fuckin' _something."_

"Kurt Co-who's-a-what?" I notice the table is riddled with a heap of general _stuff_, just piles of wires and little cords. I realize, with the slowest form of amused fascination…he's making a bomb. A week ago, my instant response would have been 'WHAT THE FUCK!?', but somehow, now, I could care less. In my opinion, Gotham City needs a good blow-up. Fucking place.

Pause.

Rewind.

Did he just ask me who Kurt Cobain was?

I slide a chair out across from him, watch him toy around, make his bomb. He's got traces of powder and 'ingredients' scattered everywhere.

"Lead singer of Nirvana?"

"Wasn't aware a state of in-fee-oh-nite bliss was also a band."

"Funny, ha-ha."

I roll my eyes at him, and he splits an obnoxious grin that makes me a little irritated. His eyebrows rise with it, and I marvel at how fast his moods change. He's such a strange form of person. I swear, he feels unreal, sometimes.

"Dave Grohl was the drummer. You're bleeding, by the way."

He touches idly at his cheek and then I shudder when he licks in one, clean swipe at his finger. I hate blood. It makes me so ill. My stomach really turns in on itself. I contemplate the concept of finding _some_ godforsaken way to bolt and never come back.

Three. Two. One. Panic dead.

"Dave Gurrrrr-_roll?_" He purrs, and two wires spark lightly. I wonder how long he's been trapped in the hole of bad pop music. The moment I bring up the Foo Fighters, he's utterly confused, but Cher? He can lip-sync every lyric to Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves (and trust me, I've witnessed it), but the moment I bring up the subject of rock he's like a dog chasing it tail in circles.

For whatever obscure reason, it's nagging at me. That blotch of dark red just hovering there.

"Did you disinfect that shit, man?" I try to avert my eyes, but my peripheral vision lets me see the teasing smirk his threadbare mouth sports. I imagine the corners of his lips pull too far, and instead of blood pouring out when it splits, it's all cotton. Cotton and piles and piles of stuffing. Like ripping a scarecrow at the seams.

"You really _are_ being a nuisance, Harvey-cakes."

"You really can't afford to lose more of your face, Cleveland."

That was vicious, even for me.

"You re-e-e-e-ally can't afford to make remarks like that, Harvey." There's a deadly calm to the edge of his tone this time, though. It's like the sound of a razorblade. It's hot and cold at the same time.

"You got alcohol in the b-bathroom?" If I can manage to walk to the bathroom. I keep grabbing at straws, trying to make everything smush back into one visual. It's not working too well, and I forget things I remembered two seconds ago.

I don't wait for him to answer; he's too busy playing with his toys. The contents of the bathroom, last I checked, were bubblegum toothpaste, a multi-colored rug that vaguely resembled a poncho and a mechanical toothbrush that so happened to be a race-car.

I stumble into the bathroom (do I look drunk? I think I look drunk.) and fervently wonder why I feel like I've been knocked in the head with something the size of Pamela Anderson's cleavage, and likely just as heavy. Only, I under-estimate the repulsive rug, and—

_FUCKING SHIT SON OF A BITCH._

I go down like an inevitable sack of bricks, and when I try to grab (see: claw) at the counter to regain balance, I fail and only succeed in pulling myself close enough to deck myself right at the eyebrow. My face takes the impact, and I just collapse in a fit of hurricane-curses.

The worst sight in all of creation awaits me.

I glance up and there he is. His eyes sparkle with bright laughter, and his mouth is pulled so far open that his teeth show in some animal display of machismo.

"Hey Harvey, by the way, you're bleeding."


	14. Aftermatch X Sick Fetish

Pain. Pain, dizziness and there happens to be more than one Cleave. A line of strict red, and a thicker one, entangled in my eyelashes. His voice warps disgustingly, sounds like James Earl Jones—

_Hey, Harvey. You're bleeding._

Hey, Harvey.

Yeah, self?

You're bleeding.

Just like that, my vision shuts down. Everything does, and next thing I know—minutes, years, days, seconds later, I fade back in. This is the worst example of directing I have ever witnessed. I'm ready for my close-up, Mister Deville. There's a sharp ache in my temple, a searing hot pain, and I guess I didn't realize just how hard I—wait, what?

"_Boy_, Harv, you smashed yourself up right good, didn'tcha?"

Disoriented isn't the word. I feel like a fox in a crowd full of hounds. It's this compressed sensation, and the side of my brain pounds like no tomorrow.

_Tell me, did you fall for a shooting star? One without a permanent scar and then you missed me while you were looking for yourself out there..._

Train. I recognize it, before I feel something lift me and my eyes practically roll. Am I leaking? I'm not quite sure my expression, but my best guess by the way my muscles feel is I'm blank as a sheet of paper.

"Alley-oop-see-daisy, Harvey-cakes."

I could've sworn about two minutes ago when I—

I fell on my head?

Did I?

Anyway, I could've sworn when I fell it hadn't been this bad. Of course, initial shock isn't a foreign concept to me, so I wouldn't be surprised if I was gushing blood but forced myself to deny it was happening.

"Train." I mumble out, and realize—I've gained myself a semi-serious head injury because I _tripped_.

"Ain't no tee-_rains_ here, Harv. No trains, no planes, no bars, no cars—" He drops me, quite roughly into a seat at the kitchen table and, in a muttering fit of madness, shoves aside all the 'crap' on the table. Wires and heavy shit crashes to the floor. "For somethin' that nasty, we'd need some ace-tamin-o_phen."_

I have no idea what that word means.

Damn this kitchen is bright.

"But, I could always just give you—ah—little mister valium buddy. Would you like that, Harvey, would you like to meet my little buddy?" I watch him almost slide all the way into a cabinet, searching, searching. My eyes are blurry, and before I know it he throws a bag of frozen peas at me and says, "Press 'em where it hurts."

I dumbly fumble until I reach the source of bloody agony and realize I probably got my insides all over the—

Pause. I flinch, and grimace heavily. There's a sudden wave of nausea, but it passes when I shut my eyes and let out the most pathetic sound known to mankind.

I remind myself that last time I 'met his little buddy' I had another black-out episode.

His little buddies aren't nice people.

"I think hospitals are—ah—out of the question, don't you?" He looks back at me, and dissolves into that asthma-attack laugh again; the one he uses when he knows something isn't funny but wants it to be, anyway, just so horribly badly.

Hospitals? I don't like hospitals. I don't like Dr. Cleveland even more.

The side of my head tingles voraciously and I go to wipe it off, hurriedly and irritably. All I come back with, when I press my palm there, is a long, slick spread of pure red. And my vision, it instantly turns into a double-fuck. I don't know how I manage this, but I begin to fall _out of _the chair.

_Tell me, did the wind sweep you off your feet? Did you finally get the chance to dance along the light of day and head back to the Milky Way. Tell me, did Venus blow your mind? Was it everything you wanted to find and then you missed me while you were looking for yourself out there…_

It's almost a crash until I realize he's holding up one end of the chair with a hand. I can see the muscles in his arm straining against his pallid skin. His knuckles pop against his hand and his eyebrows, impossible to find under the kohl around his eyes, look set in an almost straight line. Is he annoyed with me, I wonder? His lips are pursed under his endless smile; he seems to be thinking of something to say.

I realize something awful, in that fleeting second.

The iPod is on shuffle.

And the worst possible thing in creation that can flick on just rolls right on in.

_You were working as a waitress in a cocktail bar…when I met you…I picked you up, I shook you out, I turned you around, turned you into someone new… Now five years later on you've got the world at your feet  
Success has been so easy for you, but don't forget it's me who put you where you are now and I can put you back down too…_

This is cruel and unusual. Welcome to the world of awkward fun facts. I'm ridiculously turned on by _Don't You Want Me _or, rather, to be more specific, I have _always_ had some twisted mental fantasy about—well, you know.

_Don't you want me baby? don't you want me – oh, don't you want me baby? Don't you want me – oh…_

Suddenly, between the inevitable oncoming (see: already obtained) concussion and the unavoidable attraction to this eighties tune; I can't find myself able to _stop_ myself.

The scent that was, earlier, something like a carnival flips right over to the concept of _carnal_, and I can only stare as he eases the chair back down and shoves the bag of frigid vegetables at my forehead again. He doesn't anticipate it, but I grip his tie with a fierceness I didn't think myself capable of. He shoves the cold-as-fuck bag deeper into my skin, but I practically ravage him until his lipstick smudges onto my own lips and I'm dizzy with—_is that chocolate?_ I'll bet anything he was eating Junior Mints. He loves those things.

His mistake is trying to pull away from me, because I just yank the tie back down. With the force exerted at his neck, he hasn't got a choice but to comply. He licks at his lips, but I notice that, this time, the smudge of his lipstick is hilariously uneven. He just tries to tug away from me again, and croaks, "So, the—ah, the kitten has—ah…well…sh-she's got claws, doesn't she?"

_Don't you want me baby, don't you want me, oooooh?_

It's cruel how much this is getting to me. The smell of sweat and greasepaint, so slick with it and desire that seems to have a scent its own emanating from his pores. It might be because I'm dizzy. It might be because I jabbed myself through the side of the head with a counter. It might be because I—

How did I hurt myself?

"Don't you want me, baby?" I mutter, and raise my eyebrows.

He just stares, and stares, and his eyes, those predatory jackal-orbs, they sparkle, and he nods.

And all is quiet.


	15. Endgame X Give In

Welcome to the very last chapter of _Dance with the Devil. _I can promise you I'll be writing the _real_ sequel to _Dark Side of the Moon_ in a week (most likely less) once I get off my bum. Anyway, I want to thank everyone for sticking by me through the random side-project while I brooded on the concept of the sequel. Anyway, again, thank you, and here it is, what you've all been waiting for. Oh yes, Joker!Sex…but it's more Cleveland!Sex, and it's not too efficient, since Harvey's concussed, but—oh, whatever, it's there, anyway XD On with the show!

XxXxXxXxXxXx

I demand he puts _Don't You Want Me_ on from the beginning and the song blares at obnoxious volumes. It's enough to bleed one's ears, to hurt one's actually hearing—or to turn one on enough to make one a rabid animal. I really can't stand this weird fetish. I learn something, when he swipes the blood away with a wet paper towel and carries me to the bed, all humming and smiles. My legs stay wrapped around his waist, and his jaunty gait sways me nauseously, but there's a stomach-turning feeling.

Against Cleveland you feel like the most insignificant speck ever to exist. It's abnormal to me, being cradled like a child, like some helpless little brat. Against Cleave, you remember that he's God and you're nothing but an insubordinate little beast unfit to grovel at his feet. He reminds you how human you are and how solid he is. Kissing him is like kissing the act of malice, judgment, like kissing the act of betrayal itself. Against Cleave, breathing his air, you feel too small, too weak to breathe.

"Ho-_kay,_ Harvey-cakes," He speaks up, and I watch his stare, still fixed with black make up, flicker down to me, "I'm just gonna make totally sure that you're all jim-dandy with this because, yeah—I..ah—I may be a killer and a bit of a _maaad-man_, if you catch my drift, but I'm not about to stoop low enough to rape you, get me? I mean oh-_nestly­_, I've got my bad traits but that ain't one of 'em. I leave the seat up sometimes, oh yeah, sure, and when I eat peanuts I leave the shells lying around—"

His grin splits again. He licks his lips, waits, and as he rocks on his heels, I rock with him.

I wonder if his statement is honest or if he just knows how to play me like a cheap fiddle. My paranoia fades in the midst of a dizzy stupidity brought on by too many pheromones and too little lack of concussion.

And the irony gets worse.

And my music fetish only continues on.

_I know I don't know you, but I want you…so bad…everyone has a secret, oh, can they keep it? Oh, no they can't…_

There's a point where it's irritating that one becomes so irrevocably turned on by tunes.

"Yuh," Is all I slur, stupidly.

And with that "Yuh"; with that unintelligible, senseless "Yuh" I seal my fate entirely.

"Gonna tell ya right now, Harv-cakes, you start bleedin', I'm cleanin' it." He grins like a mad jackal and eases me onto the bed. I wonder if it's a joke to break the uncomfortable atmosphere, or if he's really honest. A part of me think, somehow, he's one hundred percent sincere with that statement. He's completely serious.

Do me a favor, I wanna say, go easy on me, I'm still recovering from Bat-fuck out there, somewhere, and I haven't stopped aching for days.

Instead, no words slip out of my mouth. I just balance myself on my palms and watch him with unrelenting fascination. He looks like a deity, to me.

He neatly undoes that ridiculous purple suit-jacket (see: tasteless piece of shit) and throws it at the tie-dye butterfly chair a few feet away. It lands, but then slumps, and crumples into a ball on the floor. The vest (which is in even worse taste than the jacket) is off next, and the completely disgusting green button-down is the final straw. When he pulls it out from where it's neatly tucked, the shirt looks so awkward. It billows around his thin, gangly physique so strangely, and those pants (see: far too tight) cling to his every inch of skinny leg, bicyclist-bum and ambiguously-homosexually-obvious-package. He kicks off one dog-chewed brown shoe, and then the other, and his socks are those hilarious argyle deals.

There's a raw animalism to him, though, a hidden form of sexuality just buried underneath layers and layers of goofy makeup and fodder for gay jokes. He's a wolf in clown's clothing; he's the beast in the guise of a jester.

I think all of this as I watch him, just standing there ineptly. He looks gargantuan, suddenly, somehow bigger dwarfed by his own skin. His chest, his entire abdomen is completely pale. It's that same papery shade I've seen a thousand times. His muscles, no matter how relentless they are, are indiscernible from the wiry, chicken-physique of his frame. He should have some kind of pack, I figure, to those abs of his. An eight or a six or a four, whatever it may be, but there's nothing but pallid skin.

"If you feel like undoing my tie with your teeth or something of the – ah, the _weird_ nature, speak up now or forever hold your peace." I don't, because I suddenly blank out and lose the ability vocalize at all in the first place. It's a minute before the world sets itself stationary and I realize his knee is between my legs and his other one is knelt, and his hands press into my wrists as he proclaims utter dominance in every way.

They say the tongue is the strongest muscle in the body. With Cleave, this is very true.

He nips at the bottom of my lip and tugs, then pulls away to stare me in the eyes and smirk. His head tilts, and he licks my taste off his lips.

"I'll have you know, my dear Harv, in ad-vee-_ance_, I play naughty but—" I feel the fingers on his right hand let go of my wrist, and he traces his spidery digits down the dark bruises from being tied to a chair (see: worst experience of my life) with some form of infinite, shiver-inducing tenderness, "—for you, I just might have to play nice."

If there is any justice in the world, the song playing on my iPod right now will _not_ be _Your Body is a Wonderland. _

Yeah, his definitely is.

"—Ah like the nice." My voice sounds eight worlds away.

"No, no, no, my dear," He somehow manages to kiss at my jaw and still talking, running kisses up and down, up and down while he keeps one wrist captive. I restrain a pale form of a purr, "You _love_ the naughty, but ol' Bats wrecked it for ya. I knew it from the first time I saw you—you're like one of those fuh-_reaky_ librarians with a fetish that they push to the back of the pro-verb-bee-al closet. The naughty went too far, once or twice, I think, the naughty got a little _too_ naughty and now it's good ol' _safe_ Harvey."

I'm anything but safe. I'm a magnet for danger. Look at who I'm agreeing to coitus with.

He eases his _Celine Dion Las Vegas Tour '07_ shirt over my head and he sometimes supports me with a single hand to push up off the mattress. He slides it off with a single hand and, forgotten (just like Celine Dion), it's thrown out to the loneliest corner of the room.

He traces my skin from neck to my stomach, mapping me out like some kind of beforehand conquest. His expression is curiously playful, interesting, like a child with a brand new etch-a-sketch.

"I can be nice," He sounds so much like he's convincing himself. His cheek drops to just above my left breast and he listens, his ear hot there, his tongue darting out to flick briefly across my flesh, "Nice, nice, nice, _nice."_

When he casually presses against a cluster of little bruises at my hips, his hand there beneath the boxers that actually belong to him, I literally jolt against it and his expression curls into a terrible grin.

"Sorry," He purrs, and traces circles where his fingers make me shake, "The _nice_ slipped."

His other hand lets me go, but it joins its partner at my other hip. He caresses, toys, and I let out a low whimper that excites him into clenching his teeth and hissing out a weak form of gasp. His eyes are jade immersed in oil; I search them fervently for a sign other than what I feel like is his epic need to kill me.

"Oh, Harvey, Harvey, Harvey," He murmurs, and drops his head to my throat. His ear presses by my pulse. Beneath his breath, I hear him eagerly counting the beats. Every few, he lets out a low giggle whilst he withdraws his knee and starts to pull the boxers off me. I comply without a word. All the while he listens for every beat and, finally, he murmurs, "Did anyone ever tell you you're pretty?"

I pause, and I nod like it's the dumbest question in the world anyone's ever asked. What self-respecting female hasn't gotten the you're-so-pretty, whether it be true _or_ false?

"I mean, you're not exactly a fun-parade on the personality department, and you have the social skills of a jackal with a urinary tract infection, but you _do_ happen to be nice to look at."

He kisses it, the spot. I figure he deems it a way to mark me, his favorite spot. He sits there for a moment, his lips pressed to my jugular, feeling it like some kind of twisted glee.

His fumbles with his own pants are funny. I run my hands through his hair idly, and regret not doing this when he _wasn't_ in costume. The crunchy, dark green texture is impossible to get through. The blonde is nestled cleverly underneath the mossy shade. I grip nonetheless, when he runs down my thighs and leaves little imprints of bloody lipstick that almost panics me. His pants are three-quarters of the way off, but his sudden pauses cause him to get distracted from that task at hand.

"Pretty, pretty, pretty," He croons, and nips at my bare skin. He looks up at me from between my thighs, his eyebrow raised, his entire expression Cheshire. Even from where I lie, the corners of his mouth ("False dimples," I said, once, and pointed at a scar, "you can always just tell people they're false, permanent dimples.") are grotesque visible. They peek out from one end to the other, exploding with triumphant happiness. Otherwise known as the _I'm getting laid_ expression.

Against Cleveland, you feel so useless it's almost painful, you feel like such a controlled puppet it's just narrowly inadequate. You're the pawn and he's the king and, when the chips are down, he's got no use for you but what _he_ has in store.

He kicks the purple material off his size nine feet and they wearily roll from the confines of the bed to the questionable carpet, abandoning their master. I wonder just why it is that he wore no boxers under those. Did he plan on obtaining some super-villain scoring, parading around out there in makeup?

He crawls on top of me in one effortless flip of a movement and takes my wrist, then guides my hand casually into his hair. He casts a shadow over me completely, the both of us exposed, a human blanket and speaks in that low, raspy tone, "Pull as hard as you want, girly."

He leans down, presses himself to me. His head burrows into the juncture where my neck meets my shoulder, and he bites down on that area. He draws blood (as if the cut on my head isn't doing enough of that already) and in his own steady rhythm, I feel him lap it up excitedly with his tongue. I only let out a pitiful sound; high, soft, desperate as my eyelashes flutter and he gives a great, loud engine of a purr and suppresses a quiet giggle. He's almost got a tempo all his own; I wonder how a carnival freak; a circus clown like him can maintain such grace without effort. In most everything he does, he's so smooth.

And the room is lit only by the dull, shimmery silver of the disco ball hanging a few feet away from a flimsy string on the ceiling.

And the snatches of light I can gather make dim sparkles in his green-shit hair I clutch at like a lifeline.

And the semblances of luminescence make his skin even chalkier than before, flushed with exertion and over-excitement. He's a glistening God without definition on top of me, licking and murmuring how pretty I am against my ear; impatient, fervent, _willing._

_At night I wake up with the sheets soaking wet__and a freight train running through the middle of my head…only you can cool my desire….I'm on fire…_

And all is dark.


End file.
